FOI reference: FOI-2025-2800
You asked
I am looking to gain information on how many deaths have occurred in the past 5 years due to choking, including the age of the person.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Our mortality data comes from the information collected at death registration. All the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10).
The ICD10 codes for deaths due to choking are defined by WHO as: W79 and W80.
We have previously published the number of deaths due to choking by age and sex for the period 2018 to 2022 in England and Wales.
The information you have requested is also available up to 2023 as part of our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice:
- Select the geography (England and Wales, regional, or by local authority)
- Select age – all ages or 5-year age bands
- Select gender – total or male or female
- Select rates – all deaths, rates or percentage of population, for example
- Select cause of death – ICD10 code search is available
- Select format – Excel or CSV, for example
We may be able to create a custom output on the provisional number of deaths due to choking by age for deaths registered in 2024. This, along with other special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries can be made to Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
Deaths due to external causes such as choking are often referred to a coroner. This means that we do not get informed of these deaths until the coroner has reached a verdict and registered the death meaning the registration is delayed. More information on registration delays can be found on our website. We are still in the data collection period for deaths registered during 2025, therefore we deem this as data not held.
For further information please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.